Blogs are great for small businesses

Anyone who runs a small business knows the importance of finding effective ways to market their business that won’t take too much time and can be done on a minimal, or even non-existent budget.

If this is relevant to you, then say hello to the blog; it could just be your biggest ally and your new best friend.

Blogging benefits

There are many benefits to writing a blog and posting it on your website and I’m sure you’ve heard of most of them. These include:

Driving traffic to your website

Producing social media fodder

Promoting your clients and associates

Contributing to the ever important SEO

Showing off your knowledge and expertise

Capturing the attention of your target market

Building a history of work you have done over a period of time

Keeping your website fresh with new content on a regular basis

Engaging with clients and prospects by encouraging them to leave their comments

But overall, they are a very effective means of spreading information about you and your business across a far wider audience.

Given all these advantages it’s surprising to find that a large number of small business owners are reticent to start their own blog. The common concerns seem to be:

Not knowing what to blog about

Finding the time

Keeping momentum

Knowing what to blog about

I’ve heard business owners tell me they wouldn’t know what to blog about and then spend the next hour telling me, with great passion, all about their business, the fantastic product / service they offer and the benefit they provide. For me blogging is a small step from talking about your businesses and what you can do for your clients, to putting this down in short, interesting and informative blog posts. If you’re not a great writer, you can easily record audio or video content on a smart phone and add it to your blog with a minimum of fuss.

The trick is to think about what your target audience would be interested to read about or find valuable to learn.

One of the best things is to think about the questions your customers are always asking and blog about the answers you give!

Blog about the knowledge you have which could make a real difference to your existing and future clients.

Finding the Time

The first few times you write your blog you may well find that it does take some time. However you will notice over time your blogging will get easier and quicker too.

To get you started here are my top 3 time saving tips:

You don’t need to write War and Peace so don’t be afraid to keep your blog posts short, sweet and to the point.

Write about the most common questions your clients ask you.

Write evergreen content (not linked to a specific time or event) that can be re-used.

Remember your blog has the potential to reach and influence a wide and far-reaching audience. What else could you do in that same time frame, from the comfort of the your own home/office, that could have the same impact and provide as many benefits?

Keeping momentum

It is true that once you decide to commit to a blog and host on your website you do need to make a commitment to keep it coming and keep it fresh. But this need not be as daunting as it may sound, providing you apply some crafty tactics:

Write ideas for blog content on a notepad or your phone as they come into your head so you have a list of future post topics to fall back on

Write when the creativity strikes, this will not only make it easier and quicker to write the blog but also allows you to store up posts to release over a period of weeks

Find another small business blogger whose service / product complements your own and suggest exchanging guest blog posts

We all hold a vast amount of knowledge in our specialised field; don’t give it all away at once but release as a series of posts and keep your audience coming back for more

Once you have your blog written and posted on your website you need to make sure you promote it for maximum coverage and make sure you’ve got a sign up box so that people who like your posts can get new ones delivered by email. This gives you the chance to build your own mailing list which is probably the most valuable asset a blog can provide!

Whenever something “always” happens to you, you can relax. It means that you are completely in charge of that situation.

Always late? Hmmm, let’s see now… From near or far, summer or winter, rush hour or not, alone or with others and to various destinations, and you “all-ways” manage to neutralize all of the variables so that you arrive late.
Again.

Just managing on the income you have?Hmmm, let’s see now … prices go up, prices go down. Things go on sale, appliances wear down and break. Cars need repairs. And so on. Yet you just just manage to get by on your income.
Again.

NOT managing on the income you have?Hmmm, let’s see now… Are you always managing to be down a certain amount of money each month. And then something happens to make up the difference at the last minute
Again.

People always treating you in a certain (un)acceptable way?Hmmm, let’s see now.. that would be old people, young people, good people, people you hardly know, people with different backgrounds and so on. What do they all have in common? You.
Always you.

You are so flexible that you can actually stay in the same state. You neutralize all the variables in an unconscious way. So unconscious that you don’t even realize the subtleties of you own actions. Yet there is simply no denying the repetitive-ness (and effectiveness!) of your own actions.
Always.

Choose one of the more obvious “always” things in your life. Determine the benefit of continuing it. Then give yourself that benefit (without judging!) and that “always” will vanish.